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Saturday, August 31, 2013

One of the best things I did this year so far is prepared some freezer make ahead crock pot dinners, quick lunches, and breakfasts. It has been such a huge blessing. I will admit it was a lot of work but I really had fun and enjoyed seeing my freezer full of 27 meals, 20 Breakfast Burritos, 10 Bean Burritos, 40 Pancakes, 12 Oatmeal Cupcakes.

The next morning I felt like a ran a half a marathon! No Lie! My feet and back hurt so bad. I felt I needed a little pick me up so I treated myself to some hot cocoa with whip cream and chocolate syrup...oh yeah!!!!

I got a lot of my recipes from Pinterest and some I made on my on. Here were a few of the dinners I made if you would like recipes I will be more than happy to share. Comment me and I will get you the links.

Do you do any freezer cooking or prep ahead meals for easy meal time? I can't tell you how nice it has been to head to the freezer and whip out breakfast, lunches, and suppers. It has been a major time saver and stress relief off me. It was worth a whole day cooking, cleaning, and shopping.

Tip of the week when you make a meal make extra of that and freeze. I like to do Make Ahead Freezer Meals for the crock pot. The reason being is that it takes little prep and you place it in one bag, defrost, and crock that baby! Can't beat that. You can also start small by doing Breakfast stock up on one week, Lunch the next, and then just some simple meat prep for quick throw togethers. Brown all your meat to have handy for spaghetti, sloppy joes, and soups. Grill up a bunch of chicken on Saturday. Then have chicken salads, wraps, or stir fry for a couple of days.

Hope this has given you a little nudge to dig deeper into making your meal time more simple.

We had a wonderful first day of school. I am very excited about this year. I feel at peace and more relaxed than ever before. I am also not oblivious though to the fact there will be bumps in the road but I believe we can handle them better because our foundation this year is truly going to be built on our study of God's word. Of course, our kids have had bible but we are actually grounding our whole morning digging, studying, and crafting the Word of God.

We started the day off with a yummy breakfast. They had a choice of my make ahead freezer breakfasts! They have came in handy so much. I love having meals on hand.

Then we did a couple morning chores and headed out for pictures! A tradition!

Then we started the day with our Bible Curriculum after they had their own quiet time.

Ethan giving me thumbs up...he likes his math (Teaching Textbooks)!

The littles learning the 7 Continents and 4 Major Oceans! They loved this craft! I love pinterest. You can find so many awesome things to add to your lessons.

Overall we had a lovely day! We got to end the day with friends having some BBQ and S'mores! You can't beat that!

The table below is our main station for school. This holds our chalkboard, art supplies, and lesson plans. But this table may be used for studies as well. Underneath the table houses each kids daily school books and materials for the day.

I am so excited about our upcoming year. This is the first time I have not had my own room/big area for homeschool. Our new home is very small. I have to utilize every nook and cranny. Our dining area is pretty nice and roomy (not large by no means) so we are setting up our main school area in there. Although, we use a little bit of every area of the home and outside as well.

I got the idea below from Pinterest and I love it. You get a bamboo turntable from WalMart, galvanized buckets, chalkboard labels, and magnets. You put magnets on the turntable and the buckets will stick right on. I put our colors, art pencils, glue, scissors, and pencils in them. This is so handy. No more color boxes, and big containers.

Boxes are from TJ Max as well. There were a large canvas box. They are very sturdy.

Again...I am utilizing every square inch. So...I am using our door that is in our dining area for our Calendar time wall, and sight word pockets. I can't be sticking them on the walls so this seemed the best.

We are also very excited about our Bible Road Trip Curriculum this year. Our core of our schooling this year is our Bible Time. This is separate from Quiet Time Bible Devotions. This is Study the Word and it will be the first part of our day. I am thrilled about it and I want our Homeschool to be based on the Biblical Schooling.
This container holds our bible materials for the lessons that are daily.

I love this time of year. I am looking forward to this. I am a tad overwhelmed with the planning the daily lessons. I haven't decided how I really want to plan. In the past I would write out our first semester plans but I find we always deviate from plans and then I got all the lessons written out and if I get behind I feel pressure. I am trying to decide what approach to take.

How do you plan your daily lessons? Do you go over the lessons weekly, or wing it day by day?

I was on a roll ladies....but life happened and I was sitting at the computer printing and ordering my little heart away when the pain came, the weakness struck like lightening and that was it. I have been couch ridden and all my wonderful plans of being all organized (before a certain date) for school flew out the door.

Isn't that just like all of our journey of schooling though? We plan, we organize, we have such big hopes, cut and paste, decorate, and then stuff happens. I am thankful that a while back I learned to roll with it. Trust in the situation and know that it will all work out. It always does. At the end of it all our children are cared for, loved, nourished, and (take a gasp) they do learn. Smiles!!!

We had a lovely night this past Friday, July 19th, 2013. We went to our first family night with our new homeschool group that we are so excited God has led us to.

The theme was Picnic. Each family brought their own food for their family but a dessert and drink to share. It was perfect and our family enjoyed fried chicken, potato salad, rolls. Someone made a delicious strawberry pie and that was the top of it all for me. *Smiles*

The kids had water fun outside and there was a curriculum table for parents to shop from.

I was able to get some great nature books, a skeleton man, free readers, and grammar books. Oh....and some great smelling new Scentsy Squares (I am not for sure what they are called) to make our home smell really good!!!

Hello...my friends! I hope all is well! We are plugging away at our new homeschool routine and it is going well! I am very blessed to say the least! I am in a small predicament here at Simply Blessed and Arrows of Heritage Homeschool. I obviously don't have time to be author of both blogs. Since my heartbeat is our home learning and training at home intend to write more on this. I am p,anning to combine blogs. It will be mainly focused on our homeschool but I hope to do a weekly post on Simple Blessings! Of course, I will throw in homemaking, cooking, and school planning tips.

I will remain at this blog site for now! Hope you all will still follow along on our journey!

Thursday, August 1, 2013

I have been battling kidney stones, cutting out caffeine due to that (withdraw symptoms), and trying to plan, purchase, and organize our Homeschool Year it has been hectic here at our Simple Abode.

I will be taking a rest for a brief moment here and at Arrows of Heritage Blog until later in August or until I get my gatherings. Smiles! I am excited about our new year of homeschool and I have plenty of changes to share going on in my life for better health, and spiritual vitality. I hope to share soon.

Welcome to Keeping Home! A Little Space to Journal Our Days!

Our Blessings!

Laine's Letters...HOPE for the Homemaker!!!

In 2007 when I began my journey of studying the role of Proverbs 31 I came across the best thing that has helped me as a young mom learning her role as a Wife, Mom, and Homemaker. All these years later I cling to the words of Laine. She no longer writes (that I know of) but her archives of her letters, "In the Home" help, and recipes are located here. Please visit this if you are in need of help, hope, and direction for your role in the home.
Laine's Letters!